The "through permissible means" phrase seems to be a dig at the convoluted gray area where the written and unwritten rules commingle.
Red Sox penalties for "Spygate"
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The "through permissible means" phrase seems to be a dig at the convoluted gray area where the written and unwritten rules commingle.
No they are absolutely NOT union members. They are considered part of management. That is why when a manager is suspended during a beanball incident for example, he has to serve his punishment immediately. There is never an appeal of a manager's suspension during these incidents.
Not the the manager would ever want to delay his punishment but I distinctly remember writers saying a manager is not a union member.
Who is eligible for membership in the Association?
All players, managers, coaches and trainers who hold a signed contract with a Major League club are eligible for membership in the Association. In collective bargaining, the Association represents around 1,200 players, or the number of players on each club's 40-man roster, in addition to any players on the disabled list.
https://www.mlbplayers.com/faq
It was made clear weeks ago that the Astros suspensions would NOT carry over to 2021 if there was no baseball this year. No reason to think that will not also be the case for Cora. Nothing to do with unions. The way the suspensions were worded, it's not based on games, it's specific calendar dates.
But are managers union members,? I am pretty sure they are not union members.
I'm really surprised there was no hard cash penalty, as would certainly be the case if this were the NFL.
The report from Rosenthal and Drellich about the Red Sox in 2018 came out on January 7th. The findings for the Astros report came out on January 13th. Cora stepped down the next day mostly from the PR backlash that the Astros' findings produced. There was no way they could keep him because of the distractions all the attention from the fallout would have produced this year for the team. Also, there was a chance that the MLB investigation into the Red Sox would find Cora implicated in this as well. It would have looked worse if they kept him around and he did this with Astros and Red Sox. Now that the current landscape is what it is and the findings are what they are, I believe it is more likely they will bring him back. Cora left on good terms with Bloom and the ownership. He still fits what the direction of the organization is w/r/t the use of analytics.
@Papelbon's Poutine quoted your initial post with the fact that they are union members and you asked the exact same question again. WTF?
Last 50 Red Sox 2nd-round picks:
3 did not sign (6%); 2 of those eventually made the majors, most "notably" Lance Blankenship
26 signees never made the majors (52%)
9 who played MLB were at- or below-replacement level (18%), including Kevin Romine and old friend Abe Alvarez
6 (12%) had no meaningful impact (career WAR < 5), although 1976 pick Glenn Hoffman managed 2163 ABs while accumulating 0.3 WAR.
4 (8%) had credible careers (WAR 5 - 17), including Alex Wilson (2009 / 303 GP), Kelly Shoppach (2001 / 573 GP), Justin Masterson (2006 / 258), and Jeff Suppan (1993 / 448)
2 (4%) became stars who will at least be nominated for HOF balloting: you already know them. Jon Lester (2002, 44.8 WAR) and Dustin Pedroia (2004, 51.6 WAR)<-- hidden
If you place the major-league value of a player who never makes the show at 0, then we're talking losing an average of 3 WAR from this pick. You'd also have to factor in the value of having a pre-arb / arb salary on the books, but I'm not sure that changes the analysis.
Either way, the Sox lost something of only small value. By comparison to first-rounders (e.g. Hurst, Clemens, Vaughn, Nixon, Nomar, Lowrie, Buchholz, Ellsbury, JBJ and Benintendi) it was a pretty light sanction.
Well, that says they're "eligible" for the union but notably were not listed in those represented by the Association in collective bargaining.
My reading of the MLBPA FAQ page you linked is that while managers and other non-players are eligible to join, only players are covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
I don’t know what it means to be a member of the union, but not have them bargain for terms and conditions of employment on your behalf.
If this season is totally cancelled (I doubt this will happen), it's quite possible the Mets will have hired two managers in a row who wouldn't manage a single game for them before replaced, since Brodie is going to hire his college roommate (literally, they were) Hinch as soon as he realistically can.
Based on what the Sox were found to have done, even a second round pick seems excessive to me. Not that I am worked up about it. Between the Apple Watch Incident and the appearance of impropriety, I guess Manferd felt he had to do something.
I think Cora will be back in 2021 if he wants to. He left on very good terms, did so almost immediately and unlike Beltran and the Mets, he enjoyed a phenomenally good season as the Boston manager, thereby creating a lot of good will. They will have to swallow hard on the idea of hiring a manager who was found to have cheated in another position, but time has a way of healing and that the cheating was not in Boston matters, too.
That it will irritate fans of other teams is irrelevant. That some Sox fans wont like it is almost irrelevant.
As a side point, you know that good sports news, and really any sports news, is in short supply when one of your first thoughts is that Yankees fans who were dying for the Sox to be deemed Astros 2.0 will be sorely disappointed.
I think Cora will be back in 2021 if he wants to. He left on very good terms, did so almost immediately and unlike Beltran and the Mets, he enjoyed a phenomenally good season as the Boston manager, thereby creating a lot of good will. They will have to swallow hard on the idea of hiring a manager who was found to have cheated in another position, but time has a way of healing and that the cheating was not in Boston matters, too.
That it will irritate fans of other teams is irrelevant. That some Sox fans wont like it is almost irrelevant.
As a side point, you know that good sports news, and really any sports news, is in short supply when one of your first thoughts is that Yankees fans who were dying for the Sox to be deemed Astros 2.0 will be sorely disappointed.
FYI, You can also use the ispoiler tag and it will blur out the line just like this This this is wicked awesome and I love it
Well this is a relief. I was worried, perhaps irrationally, that Manfred was going to hammer us after he botched his handling of the Astros situation. I’m very happy to see how minor the infraction was and how light the punishment is. Add me to the folks who hope Alex is back in the dugout for 2021.
Yes, he went to the Red Sox and told them that because of the Astros report and his punishment pending that he would be too big of a distraction in 2020, they agreed to mutually part ways.
I love bathing in the tears of the butthurt. A good deal of r/baseball believes Mr. Watkins is a scapegoat, we got off too light, and that the lack of evidence suggesting serious wrongdoing is due to us shutting up and not having a Mike Fiers around to blow the whistle.
The MLBPA has three different divisions, the union, the business division and the charity division. Only MLB players are members of the union and covered by the CBA. Others can participate in the business (licensing of images, official merchandise) and the charity arms of the Association.
This is how Goodell should had handled Deflategate. Make clear this was done by rogue employees (McNally, Jastremski), and leave it at that.
Except they didn’t do anything wrong and punishing them only would have looked like a coverup for Brady anyway.
Sports Illustrated putting up a title that's way over the top, IMO:
https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/22/red-sox-sign-stealing-scandal
https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/22/red-sox-sign-stealing-scandal
Different level of ownership pressure unfortunately. He can’t even close this Bengals thing even though there’s nothing there because a bunch of owners hate the Patriots and Belichick.
Great research, thanks for this. One question - wasn't Fred Lynn a second round draft pick?
Think about it. Why was Brady suspended?
"On May 11, 2015, the NFL announced that Tom Brady was suspended without pay for four games of the upcoming season for his involvement, based on "substantial and credible evidence" that Brady knew Patriots employees were deflating footballs and that he failed to cooperate with investigators." (wiki)
The second part has a little more teeth, though Gostowski also didn't hand over his cell phone. But the first part....Brady got suspended four games for possessing knowledge - not for actually DOING anything or even orchestrating anything. Just for....KNOWING about something (of course that "something" didn't even happen, but even if it did....).
The people, even according to Goodell, that actually DID something wrong was McNally and Jastremski. But somehow BRADY gets suspended? The MLB ruling is WAY better and more just. How about punishing the people who ACTUALLY did something wrong?
Didn't there used to be a thing about putting managers and coaches on the 40-man roster in September to earn enough service time as a player for a pension?
It no took a long time to make sure the trail of followed breadcrumbs did not exit Fenway Park.
L’Affair JT.
I believe it used to be important for logging service time to qualify for a pension.
"Along with others" and "collective conduct" of the Astros.
Sounds like Alex thinks he's getting more blame for what down in Houston then he should have?
Sounds like Alex thinks he's getting more blame for what down in Houston then he should have?
This is smart - it gives cover to Bloom so that he can undertake his own managerial search at the appropriate time without the expectation that Cora will be brought back. Given ownership's clear feelings of affection and appreciation for Alex, he can still conceivably be brought back if no better candidates are available, but there shouldn't be an assumption that the job is his.
this is not the SI of your youth. Even if you are only 18 it isn’t the SI of your youth
I am not seeing that from this.
I mean, it doesn't take a huge leap in logic to believe that's what happened.
We're not likely to ever know precisely what went on with the Astros, but let's be clear about one thing - the MLB report claiming that the Bench Coach and grizzled veteran were the masterminds and that the manager "hated everything about it but was powerless to stop them so he's getting banned for a year" was pure bullshit. (Almost as farcical as claiming that the same bench coach who was smart enough to cook up the elaborate scheme in Houston was blissfully unaware of the replay room shenanigans in Boston the following year.)
About the only safe conclusions we can draw are that (1) what happened in Houston was considered such an outlier that stiff punishments were necessary to serve as a warning to the rest of MLB not to go there, and (2) that what happened in Boston may be embarrassing, but was also not an outlier, so they can't justify the same sort of organizational punishments.
Beyond that, everything is conjecture. And MLB desperately wants us to move on and pay no attention to the asshole behind the curtain.
We will never know, but I can't help but wonder if the punishment would have been more severe had the pandemic never happened. This announcement really feels like Manfred wanted to get it over and done with and avoid any further embarrassment to MLB at this precarious time.
I know writers/reporters don’t really have anything to do with headline copy, but Verducci should be embarrassed to have his name associated with that blatant, pandering, click bait. While MLBs findings and actions can’t really be called complete vindication, they were about a million miles from concluding that the 2018 title was tainted. Just shut it down SI, if this is the kind of Russian bot-level rubbish we can expect going forward.
Over the top is putting it mildly. Verducci has gone out of his way to point out that none of this impacted the post-season in 2018, among other significant differences from Houston. And that headline's being used to make points by other commentators is really, really annoying.
I have my doubts that the pandemic lessened the severity of the punishment. Even before everything closed down, there were hints and rumors that the investigation was wrapping up and there'd be an announcement forthcoming, but it kept getting pushed back. The impression that gave me was that they were simply continuing to dig to find something where there really wasn't much of anything. Then the pandemic made it more difficult to do that digging, not to mention priorities changed dramatically.
The only thing that surprised me about the announcement yesterday was that it wasn't a Friday afternoon dump.